The Illusion That is Time

Reflections from a grown up kid.

I think I need to close my eyes,

Listen to the tick tock

Of the clock and realise –

Every minute that passes by,

Each second as I draw a breathe,

And as I exhale,

I have to tell myself that time is all the same.

Nothing passes by too fast,

Even if it feels so, this time,

It’s the same tick tock of the time.

Since I went back home to see my family and spent time reliving my childhood, recreating the same memories, being reloved – something still felt slightly different. It wasn’t the same anymore. The childhood bubble must slow down things that happen to us, around us – because time was racing, so much so, it felt like I got on the plane to go home, and I was back in a day. As if I hadn’t left at all.

This made me wonder about the dichotomy of time, its illusions, its subjectivity. What time really means, how it’s hardly the numbers on the clock that define time. It has to be something else. Maybe when we make the most of time, when we truly live in the moment, it flows like a river running with ease to its destination. Maybe that’s why, when I sit down to study or do work, time just seems unending, so painful is each minute that when I look back at the clock, it is as if the clock had frozen since I last checked it.

How frustrating that must be, and I wonder if you feel the same about time as I do? This injustice of time struck me at two specific moments in the last month. The two moments at odds with each other:

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1. When I said goodbye to my grandfather before my flight back

It was only when my grandfather’s hands fell into mine that I realised every minute of time that had passed through me. Everything was aging, everything — the wrinkles of his hands against the softness of mine, the rough patches on his fingers, the palpitations in the heart of his palms. Time had been lying to me all this time, it made me feel bigger, as if I had control over it, as if I had time in the palm of my hands, in my grasp — but I was the one who had lost; I had lost all of that time. I should’ve sat next to him longer, let him hold my hands longer, I should’ve, I could’ve, I would’ve — only if I had some more time.

As I grow up, I realise this is normal. Nothing makes sense inside this cyclone of time. Everything can seem fast yet so quiet. Time on Earth can feel like living in the eye of a storm. Can anyone really make sense of it? How does one repair the clock that ticks away in our heads everyday… how does one hold themselves back from running faster than the minute that passes by… is there a finish line or do we float in circles forever?

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2. After I left, when I was consumed by the haste of London (A poem)

Quite opposite to that was a moment I was at the busiest station in Central London. As I looked around me, the place I have seen so many times, yet never grasped its essence. I thought, as if in conversation with it:

In this city, everyone’s begging for a little bit of time.

The hours in a day are never enough,

London —

You are a city of quarrels, wet roads, it’s so cold here and everyone’s smoking

There’s an ad for a happier life staring right at me.

There’s a fight next door, someone’s always in a bad mood in London

Someone’s always cycling on the footpath,

There’s always a dispute,

And children are held back from running free,

and crowds collect, disperse, unfold themselves

with their elbows knocking into someone’s shoulder bag.

Someone’s suitcase slips on the wet road,

slides towards a black cab, and there’s chaos.

You’re telling me anyone has a good day in London? show me

Show me that one person –

Who isn’t queuing up to a pub for a drink,

everyone’s slightly drunk on life in London

Time is so scarce in their hands, heads covered up mostly in confusion

Where is everyone going? What’s the rush?

Everyone’s dressed up to get to a destination.

Time stops in the underground,

Life is a cacophony in my ears,

And buildings look down on people,

I feel stuck in a loop like my favourite song,

I just want to have some days off,

From all the time I spend in London.

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So…How do you spend your time?

A song for you:

St Paul’s - London 2025

See you in the next newsletter, thanks for reading!